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Ask HN: View Source Like in the Matrix?

5 points by coddle-hark ↗ HN
I was rewatching The Matrix the other day and it got me thinking about information density in source code. In the movie, they view the “source code” of the matrix as vertical columns of scrolling characters. The characters vary in brightness and the scrolling varies in speed, and the whole screen is filled with these characters. Compared to how source code is usually presented, there’s a lot more information on the screen.

Has anybody looked into information dense representations of code like that? I’m thinking it might be useful for getting an oversight of a code base or something. Honestly I don’t even know the proper terminology to describe the effect, so if anyone can point me towards relevant literature I’d be grateful.

8 comments

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arthurcolle
It's a work of fiction. Maybe learn the Malebolge esolang if you need a challenge.
coddle-hark
Yes, of course, but I think it’s an interesting idea to have one format for writing code and another much denser format for viewing code.
mtmail
""I like to tell everybody that The Matrix's code is made out of Japanese sushi recipes," says Whiteley, a production designer from England who's now based at the Animal Logic animation and visual-effects studio in Sydney. He scanned the characters from his wife's Japanese cookbooks." https://www.cnet.com/news/lego-ninjago-movie-simon-whiteley-...

So writing top-to-bottom Japanease might add more information density. And using a programming language that doesn't require brackets or spaces.

Memosyne
Relevant: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2003/can-chinese...
coddle-hark
That’s really interesting, thanks!

> Seenig the shape of the wrods, not redaing them in detial. (how many typos did you see here?). In Chinese, you don't look at each stroke or radical, you just get the entire character at once.

> Findings indicate that the Chinese readers (24.7 minutes) are faster than the English readers (26.6 minutes) by about 2 minutes on the same reading material.

coddle-hark
Japanese is interesting because one “letter” in the alphabet represents a complex sound (e.g. か = “ka”) and one kanji can describe an entire word (e.g. 花 = “hana” = flower). So a column of Japanese characters is actually more information dense than a column of English characters, at least phonetically.